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Digital Replicas May Change Games and Film
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Steve Perlman is touting technology that he says can create animated digital reproductions of the human body that are as accurate as photographs, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Game makers could use the system, called Contour, to create very realistic animated characters in videogames with fully controllable movements and facial expressions. Film makers could use the technology as a kind of digital makeup, changing an actor's looks or words or switch camera angles without costly retakes. The technology can even substitute one actor's face for another's and create exact replicas of long-dead historical figures.'"
finally: something to make humans totally unnecessary in all film clips! what's that, mr. president? you're addressing 50 audiences at once on live television, saying contradictory things to each? what a talented orator!!!
Realistic animations are already possible, has been for ages, it's called motion capture.
I only see the use of this technology for movie to game adaptions were they can quickly copy a real life actor to 3D. For the rest, why would you want to hire multiple actors to do the same thing what a couple of voice actors, motion capture actors and animators can do.
Besides, how would you use this technology in a non-realistic game.
Is this like in "Blade Runner III"?
I'm sure the UN is concealing something here... lets all take Voight-Kampff tests right now!
Given that TV studios already like reality TV in large part because the cast is cheap, will we start seeing 100% virtual actors? From a business standpoint, intellectual property beats a human face that ages, gets into tabloids ( and potentially ruining the carefully marketed image ) is costly and needs to be recycled regularly.
This may revolutionize the porn industry. Imagine taking all the best porn actresses in their primes and putting them all in one movie. Check that, 1,000 different movies. Now it's possible. On a serious note, the less actual sex involved in making the porn, the less risk to the actors.
Leaving the p0rn industry for a moment, anyone who ever sold a picture of themselves and waived all future rights and royalties is going to be in for a surprise, especially if the picture is them in a birthday suit. You may see congressional action to protect people from having their images used in such ways if they signed "all rights" contracts before the technology became available.
Someday, we will have the ability to create totally new "people" for movies, without relying on any existing images. That way the whole concept of royalties and rights is avoided altogether.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Did I read that right? So if we want to get rid of the real Tom Cruise and only use a virtual Tom for, say, 30 minutes of a film, that will run us... $2000 * 60 sec * 30 mins = $3.6 million
And to deal with your second question, textures will still be added after capturing structure and movement information, so you could make people blue, tweak the models or whatever after the fact still. (Like in the example, the teeth, skin, hair etc are all being slotted back in from photo's)
Did you go near the article? Yes yes, I know, I must be new here...
I bet Homeland Security will love this.
Suspect that someone is a terrorist, but have no evidence at all to support your allegations. - No problem, just whip up a photo-realistic animation of them attending a local bomb-making class. Lather, rinse, repeat.
As seen in the case of film, improving technology of film camera and sound systems means nothing to quality of film (it doesn't improve films, it doesn't degrade films). After a few months/years of photo-realistic-games-shock-therapy we will all get back to unrealistic Mario worlds. I don't think that graphic performance is limiting factor (any more) for todays games quality
839*929
create exact replicas of long-dead historical figures
I don't think you want to witness this, judging by how the process is described in TFA:
First, an actor's face is coated in ordinary phosphorescent makeup like that worn by children at Halloween. The actors then conduct their performance in a studio surrounded by fluorescent lights and digital cameras.
Dig 'em up, cover 'em in phosphorescent makeup and dangle 'em in front of the camera?
What does congressional action and protecting people have to do with each other?
Game makers might achieve photorealistic representations of human appearance and motion, but our new (mostly welcome) digital overlords will still bump into walls, get stuck behind things, get in your way, not look at you while they're talking and generally make mistake and act like they're just computer representations. Game makers for the most part have all the graphical juice they need to convince us of a world's authenticity.
Though I really do enjoy advances in the level of graphical detail that increasing sophistication in hardware and software bring, I feel we need better AI, not fancier graphics . If a game's AI was as big a selling point (and therefore had the same amount of money invested in developing technologies and software for it's advancement) as the graphical prowress of the hardware then I think Alyx in Half Life 2 would probably have gone sentient at this stage.
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So when can I get this on my PC? I'd probably buy Quake 5 if the people looked completely real - Awesome way to do a tech demonstration..
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Are you making political commentary or are you being serious? If commentary, then touche.
If you are serious, let me spell it out. A lot of people who signed away "all rights" for the use of photographs had no way of knowing what the future technology would bring. Their contracts probably were written by lawyers with the specific intent of allowing such future technology. You'll see people who naively signed such contracts sue in court and lose. They will turn to their Congressmen, who will pass a law basically allowing these people to go back into court for a second bite at the apple. Whether such a law will ever be passed or if it will hold up in court or not I don't know, but Congress will get involved and some Congressman will file a bill if enough citizens complain.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think in some aspects this is bad news for films. I'm completely turned off the idea of watching a movie if I think that they've messed about with an actor's face in order to improve on their expression or fix something. I think it's horrendous. I wonder how many actors will shortly have in their contract that film makers can't animate over their face without written consent? Speaking of which, I wonder how many actors currently have written into their contracts/estates that their image can't be raped after their death in cheesy car adverts etc?
William Gibson's "Idoru" had me expecting virtual celebrities to come out of Japan first. On the other hand nobody more than Mel Gibson could probably use a virtual Mel Gibson right now. A virtual Mel that can only drink whatever comes out of the Internet tubes and not his pub's taps.
Not in my life time...
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"Wohlschläger, team up with the digitalised Humphrey Bogart."
- Last Action Hero
There are a couple of other uses that come to mind. How about a fake presidential declaration of war, a nulclear strike on the U.S., casting doubt on bad footage, demonizing an enemy, child porn, incriminating political opponents, or blackmail? Or even better, embedded reporters.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
Now I see some are afraid of forged "photos".... Actually, the larger problem with this technology is not that you could possibly manufacture photographic evidence to damage someone else's ambitions, goals, or whatnot; it's that in creating that possibility, hard photo/video evidence loses its credibility in court, and will only continue to do so with time.
I guarantee that when this becomes mainstream (just as most CG geeks knew would happen years ago), that implicating a person of influence/wealth will become nearly impossible, as any time any damaging photo/video evidence pops up (oh, say, like photos of torture at the hands of the US government at Guantanamo or a worse and nameless fascimile) the powerful will declare that it's been manufactured by the opposing side.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
> This may revolutionize the porn industry. Imagine taking all the best porn actresses in their
> primes and putting them all in one movie. Check that, 1,000 different movies. Now it's possible. On
> a serious note, the less actual sex involved in making the porn, the less risk to the actors.
Oh yeah, just think of the hundreds of broken necks and sore knees that can be avoided.
Another change to the porn industry would be that they could provide porn software, instead of a rendering using the software, allowing the end user to choose such things as the sex, race and..uh..age...of the participants...
"Someday, we will have the ability to create totally new "people" for movies, without relying on any existing images."
s m.movie.html
This has been done in Japan. The first one I remember is Kyoko http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9702/04/japan.date/kyoko.
but I've seen other, more realistic stuff since then.
How long before (virtual) snuff films are so real the "thought police" legislate against them?
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
The movie S1m0ne comes to mind.
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Steve's company already does motion capture (MOVA) this gets closer to getting faces right - as good as the body mocap was in Polar, convincingly accurate expression on the faces were sorely missing - this gets you closer to capturing faces and getting a more complete model accurate to motion. If you watch the most recent Robota trailer, they even went to video on the female character to keep it as realistic as possible for the trailer. It can be seen as an attempt at a leap across the uncanny valley.
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Anyone else think that they have a pretty big hurdle to overcome before truly human-looking digital actors are anything but creepy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
"The Uncanny Valley is the region of negative emotional response for robots that seem 'almost human'. Movement amplifies the emotional response."
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Do you know how many "actors" you could hire for the $2000/minute cost associated with creating just one CGI character?
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This may revolutionize the porn industry. Imagine taking all the best porn actresses in their primes and putting them all in one movie. Check that, 1,000 different movies. Now it's possible. On a serious note, the less actual sex involved in making the porn, the less risk to the actors.
If this technology is used for pr0n its only a matter of time until someone sells custom-made pornos of the buyer with the partner(s) of thier choice.
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
Similar to email technology, which potentially had the evindencial-quality of a handwritten page of paper, which in turn was supposed to be a good form of evidence. Pretty soon law enforcement agencies will be relying on DNA/bioindentification alone, and we also know that that, too, can be planted with relative ease. But then, if it can be created it can be destroyed or modified.
I just want to copy my fact on to a hot girl's body...
Does anyone else here cringe when they see computer animation superimposed on film or passed off as a real action sequence? Graphics have definitely gotten a lot better over the years but I always laugh when someone describes the next gen of movie effects as lifelike or realistic.
Take Spiderman for example - I find those swinging sequences to look so horribly fake and robotic. The character model looks pasted-on because the light doesn't strike his body as it should and he isn't as softened by the camera as other objects, and the body motion appears jerky and forced.
So we'll see what the next gen has in store for us, but I have a feeling it will impress us only the first time we see it in a theatre. Jurassic park looked amazing that first time, but in subsequent viewings anyone can easily tell the difference between CGI and a model.
I love video games but I hate movies full of computer effects. Practical effects like those in Sam Raimi's movies are still the only way to go in my books!
The /. comment is misleading. The technique to digitally capture the surface of a human body will not help make digital movies with no actors. You still need a real actor to do the job; the described technique only projects the original actor's image on the new actor. The age of the digital actor is not here yet, although this technique may be useful for ressurrecting dead actors.
In order to make fully digital actors, there are several problems to be solved:
1) animation that follows real life physics. Although digital animation has made great steps, the human motion can not be fully synthesized yet in a way that it totally fools the eye.
2) realistic voice synthesis. Computers still can not make realistic synthetic voice.
3) putting emotion into the above. In some day truly believable synthetic animation and voice will be achieved using only digital techniques. But what about the emotions? humans can do many emotions at the same time, all with subtle expressions, and using their face and voice in various subtle manners.
I would love to have truly believable synthespians. It would allow my favorite series to keep going on for ever. For example, there would be no problem doing a new Star Trek movie with Kirk and Spock (many fans have disagreed with the new movie due to the new actors that will be playing Kirk and Spock). But I just don't see it in the near future.
Then these people should read the article. You need a special paint applied on your face and then be in a specially lit room in order to be recorded. There's is no concern to be had over this forgery "issue".
Why copies of real porn stars? I imagine gay porn featuring a G.W.Bush-Osama-Saddam threesome to be way more profitable...
The movie Looker came to my mind first.
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This will make hollywood movies even more idiotic but I'm sure box office sales will increase. The craft of acting (in hollywood) is at an all time low, but the audience doesn't seem to care.
Steve Perlman is touting technology that he says can create animated digital reproductions of the human body that are as accurate as photographs, the Wall Street Journal reports.
If they are anything like the photos I take, does that mean that the animated digital reproductions are missing heads and have giant thumbs hovering in front of them?
The Paint and special equipment in the article can be thought of as first generation equipment; there is little doubt the technical hurdles requiring the paint or bulky equipment will go away in time.
There is no reason a decent hi-res multi-angle view of someone could not do the same thing, given enough refinement to the software and processing horsepower.
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Ever see the movie Looker? It seems thats where we're headed (minus the hypnotizing guns). Real, high-paid actors are no longer necessary. See how many TV commercials aren't even live-action anymore, most are CGI or animated anymore.
She was apparently a moderate success, a typical idol. Not all idols are shortlived but she was and with so many real girls wanting to be idols who wants to create a virtual one? They are so hard to audition on the couch if you know what I mean.
But yeah, you can see the appeal of a virtual Han Solo or Indiana Jones. Just crank them movies out without having to deal with a grandpa actor.
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Look up virtual kiddie porn and you'll have your answer.
Anybody ever see the movie looker?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/
Why is it that each time someone claims to be capable of creating "photo realistic" or "lifelike" digital images only have a shity demo to show what might pass as "realistic" to the clinicly blind?
Sure. But the reaction to this particular implementation of the technology is still overblown.
So this could mean the replacement of real actors with virtual ones? An eventual upside of this technology could be the death of the childish, self-indulgent celebrity culture which so many people inexplicably worship.
Does the film, "The Running Man" ring a bell? And if so, do you remember how technology that was exactly like this, was used? Scary to say in the least...but I am cynic by nature so...
Does this really go under "Games"? I guess it has an application in game production, but no more than in film.
:(
This is the kind thing that I'm missisng at siggraph this year.
I can't recall the exact year though. :-( In one of the Siggraph presentation videos, there was a presentation about a system to take a 2-D photo and create a 3-D model (w/ skin texture from the photo) from it. They created an "average" face from hundreds of 3-D face scans and then used information from the photo to build up the 3-D model of the new face from the average face. I was wondering when it would show up in a practical application. TFA seems to indicate his team may have done this on their own though. But since they will be at SIGGRAPH, I'm sure the original team will pipe up. :-)
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Um, then you can't watch ANY movies, because they've been doing this for years. You know how easy it is to splice footage and make it look natural. They've had technology for decades to do anything from make an actor blink a few more times ina scene, to today's bullet time in the Matrix movies. It's just been easier until now to simply tell the actor to do whatever it is (you ARE paying them for a reason) Really, with a little bit of clever foley, you may not even need to touch the image--the human mind gets most emotional information through sound. Think, what would affect you more, seeing a silent film of someone getting shot, or hearing the guy actually screaming? Usually your brain will "fix" the image on screen to match your sound, and unless you've seen it enough (or the foley is done badly) you never notice it. Honestly though, did you think the CG departments of those large studio houses sat around and did nothing? Green/Blue screen is one of the oldest cinema technologies. Studios are constantly "messing" with an actor's face to improve it. With that mindset, are you against makeup in drama and theatre? It's called acting for a reason. It's not real--we trick ourselves into believing it is. (I'm oddly reminded of the Thermians in Galaxy Quest)
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I can tell from some of the pixels, and from seeing quite a few shops in my time.
I'm not sure I agree with your thoughts on it helping "small production films."
Actors are cheap; CG is expensive. The percieved 'cost' of actors is distorted by how much it costs to hire a super-star, but most low-budget films can't afford that anyway, so they're using no-name actors to begin with. I think the actors' salaries are a pretty small part of most small-budget films who aren't trying to hire someone with name recognition.
A machine would definitely be cheaper than hiring Harrison Ford, but to paraphrase Monty Burns, it's probably not going to be cheaper than hiring his 'Mexican, non-union replacement.'
In any major city there is probably a surplus of actors willing to work in film for a basic living wage (and quite possibly less than that). Particularly if you can script your film to use youngish actors, there's a fairly big talent pool of people willing to work for publicity; in some cases they can be quite good.
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create exact replicas of long-dead historical figures.
Or kidnap and make replicas of living historical figures. Bwa ha ha.
Maybe in the next 10 years it'll enhance video games, but in the next 20-30 years this could create serious political problems. Politicians will be misrepresented and fake videos will spread throughout the globe. Perhaps astute people will find ways to determine what is truth and what is not, but a large portion of voters could be completely duped. Corruption will rule. The apocalypse will not be far behind.
that idea is stolen from "kidnapster" in one futurama episode ;)
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Ever since I watched Looker back in 1981, I've been waiting to see if/when technology would catch up to the capabilities in the movie. We're not quite there yet, but close enough to make me really nervous.
Finally no more Bradgelinas, T K Cruise BS and all that other hollywood jazz. People magazine would have to fold up shop. No more ET crap.. This is a great day for humanity..
I see ethical debates on the horizon in regards to the use of this technology in creating first person shooter games and other genres that have a tendency to strike a nerve.
Should games really be taken there?
Everytime this comes up, I feel obliged to point people to the movie Looker .
It *might* already be happening. If this stuff gets used in network broadcasting...
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I think the video game industry will run with this, and make it a great success. However, I think the film industry will play with this (and other motion-capture technologies) for a while, then resort back to good humans. Why? The actors will play along for a while, but their performances will lose authority because audiences will feel their performances were "enhanced" with computer aid. Just like in sports, we want our athletes to perform completely on their own merits, and not with the boost of technology. Sure, digital imagery can make an actor look younger, happier, etc, but ultimately, there will be a "return to purity" movement led by actors and demanded by audiences who are fed up with digital trickery. We want real human emotion, not digitized human emotion.
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I'm not convinced this is as easy as they claim...
How does the new virtual human data, respond to lighting adjustments? Can you alter the lighting? Add key lights? Add fill lights? Move them around etc?
How about the simulation of the properties of materials? The human skin is quite difficult to get looking real, and it doesnt look like this process would be able to simulate any of teh real properties of skin and how it reacts to lighting. How about the metalic surfaces in buttons or jewelry? How about shadows being cast from the hair, clothing, or limbs?
It looks like its locked into its default lighting that it was originally filmed in.
The courts basically said if no child was involved in the making of an image, it's legal. Totally computer-simulated porn which never used an actual child's photograph as input is generally legal, as are cartoons and other drawings. Obscenity laws might still apply, but it's not because the image looks like a child.
Probably still illegal:
Putting kid's heads on adult bodies
Putting adult genitals on child bodies
Any "derivative work" which involved the photographing of an actual child at any stage of production. This would include the technology we are talking about here.
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Am I the only one who read this and thought, been there, done that?
I was amazed that I didn't see anyone mention the movie The Running Man.
Expected? Man, we're already way past that point. But they're not doing it much. It's just cheaper to grab a random girl off the street, promise her all the coke she can snort and not waste much money on her (one girl plus a studio crew vs. an entire special effects team plus that studio crew?) so you have enough left for what really makes an idol: Marketing.
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